Public defenders, facing burgeoning workloads, begin rejecting new cases

Arthur J. Jones spoke to a client in Miami in September. Jones left his $44,000-a-year job on Monday for private practice. (Oscar Hidalgo/The New York Times)

MIAMI - Public defenders' offices in at least seven states are refusing to take on new cases or have sued to limit them, citing overwhelming workloads that they say undermine the constitutional right to counsel for the poor.

Public defenders are notoriously overworked, and their turnover is high and their pay low. But now, in the most open revolt by public defenders in memory, the government-appointed lawyers say budget cuts and rising caseloads have pushed them to the breaking point.

In September, a Florida judge ruled that the public defenders' office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many of those arrested on lesser felony charges so its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients.

Over the last three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer in a year has climbed to close to 500 from 367, officials said, and caseloads for lawyers assigned to misdemeanor cases has risen to 2,225, from 1,380.

"Right now a lot of public defenders are starting to stand up and say, 'No more. We can't ethically handle this many cases,' " said David Carroll, director of research for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

The Miami-Dade case, which is being closely watched across the country, was appealed by the state and is now before the Florida Supreme Court. If the judge's decision is upheld, it could force courts in Miami to draw lawyers from a smaller state office and contract with private lawyers, at greater expense. But such lawsuits are just the most overt sign of the burdens that lead harried lawyers in Michigan to talk openly about "McJustice" and in New York to make dark jokes about the plea bargain "assembly line."

"In my opinion, there should be hundreds of such motions or lawsuits," said Norman Lefstein, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law and an expert on criminal justice.

"I think the quality of public defense around the country is absolutely deteriorating," he said, asserting that unless states spent more on lawyers, courts would force them to delay trials or, as has happened in a few cases, threaten to drop charges against unrepresented defendants.

The most immediate impact of the rushed justice, Lefstein and Carroll said, is that innocent defendants, sitting in jail, may feel pressure to plead guilty or may be wrongfully convicted - which means the real offenders would be left untouched.

Appeals claiming inadequate defense are extremely difficult to win, specialists say.

In its landmark 1963 decision, Gideon v. Wainwright, which was widened in subsequent cases, the US Supreme Court ruled that poor criminal defendants were entitled to government-paid representation.

In the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida in Miami, the defenders' office has had its budget cut by 12.6 percent in the last two years while the workload has climbed by 29 percent over the last four years, said the circuit's chief defender, Bennett H. Brummer.

State Senator Victor D. Crist, chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, said the judicial system had faced smaller cuts than other parts of government.

Arthur J. Jones, 30, left his $44,000-a-year job on Monday for private practice, saying he could not support his children on that salary.